How To Be More Feminine: 13 Femininity Traits That Make Men Crush On You

Author: Jerri W & Renée Shen

I can hear the feminist screeching and fist waving from here, why on earth would a modern day, strong and independent woman desire to know how to be more feminine? 

Femininity has, after all, been strongly equated with meekness and weakness, while masculinity is held as the gold standard of how to be a human being. Fact is we live in a highly masculine world, a world where masculinity is not just celebrated but necessary, and not just in men.

Modern women have been forced to become more masculine, how else could we keep up in a world that honors promotions over pregnancy, money over mothering, success over sustenance... 

Do you see where I am going with this? It’s a man's world but not exactly in the way you might think.

Now I’m not here to push patriarchal gender roles or archaic notions of femininity, this is a very nuanced subject, every human being is made up of different combinations of feminine and masculine energies - gender aside. 

There are no rules in how to be more feminine, in fact, disregard the rules because femininity also isn't things like receiving, being chased, leaning back or any of the butchered concepts you see pushed by gurus. 

MORE: Is it Really "Feminine" to Receive? (& other crazy myths about masculine & feminine energy)

It’s also not about wearing dresses and putting on makeup, although these can be fun ways to feel more feminine! So, what is femininity exactly?

CLICK HERE to Learn How to Become the World’s Most Attractive & Feminine Goddess (Even if you have no self esteem or no man has ever paid you any attention…)

Defined as having qualities or an appearance traditionally associated with women, femininity on a surface level is the traits and characteristics you would naturally assign with girls and women, think things like dresses, softness and being kind.

On a deeper level though, femininity is much more complex. You could get lost for hours in all the great works in philosophy, mythology and history on femininity, as I did in preparation for this article. 

To simplify it for the purpose of this article I like to think of femininity as the blood and energy from which all life is born. 

Femininity nourishes, grows, and nurtures life to thrive. If you have a think about the conditions required for life to thrive, things like this come to mind:

• Warmth
• Safety
• Sustenance
• Air
• Water

It's helpful to imagine that femininity is the embodiment of these things, of life itself. 

For example, the warmth and safety of the womb, sustenance from the breast, flowing like a river with the unpredictability and strength of the wind. Sounds majestic right? And it is, femininity is an incredibly beautiful and powerful thing.

QUIZ TIME: Are you truly living in your feminine energy? CLICK HERE to find out with my specially crafted 9 Question Quiz!

As I mentioned earlier, we live in a highly masculine world, another way to think about this is to consider masculine strengths and energies and how they serve us in our day to day lives. 

A woman for example, needs to embrace her masculine to be able to successfully climb the career ladder, or often just to be able to earn enough to pay her rent or make ends meet. 

Masculinity also serves women when we need to: 

• Walk to our car alone at night 
• Compete in sports
• Solve a practical problem; or 
• Replace a broken bulb 

Just through these few examples here, you can see how often a modern woman may need to live in her masculine. There is nothing wrong with this, it is necessary and it is what it is, but as a side effect we spend more time in our masculine energy and less time with our femininity.

It’s not uncommon for women to actively suppress their femininity, especially when it doesn’t seem to serve her, or she doesn’t feel that she is very safe or enough in this world.

How Most Women Reject their Femininity & How You Can Stand Out from the Crowd (thefemininewoman.com)

When we spend less time in our femininity, we become more stressed, harsh, logical, and emotionally closed off - we become more like men. 

This is fine if these qualities align with what your heart truly wants from life, but if you desire deep emotional connection and love with a man, then your femininity is your greatest asset.

Embracing your femininity will strengthen your relationships with men.

Relationships are important to women, obviously not all but if like most women you are feminine at your core, then your relationships are especially important to you. 

Even if that is unpopular to say or hard to admit, it's true for most of us right?

On a fundamental level as women, we are all guilty of placing our value and self-worth on the strength of our relationships.

Despite popular female motivational rhetoric, this is not a flaw.

Relationships are the domain of the feminine, if we didn’t worry about them and feel inclined to nurture them, then nobody would, that would have disastrous consequences for civilization as we know it!

Here's how to be more feminine in 4 simple steps by The Feminine Woman...

Feminine women fuel and inspire men. Try to think about what the world is like for a typically masculine man? 

In all his drive, purpose and logic he lacks the wonder and majesty of the life force, unless he can secure a woman (or women) to fuel him. Put simply, your femininity lights up his dreary masculine world and gives meaning to his purpose.

Men don’t always value the things we think they do. Any resourceful man can produce a good meal, have his house cleaned or find outlets for sex, but none of that compares to how your femininity alone can nourish and soothe a masculine soul, a high value feminine woman is his only source for that.

What Is The One Specific Emotional Trigger Within Every Single Man in this World That Inspires Him to WANT to Commit to One Woman, Want to Take Care of Her, Worship Her and Only Her?

Below I will list 13 feminine traits and how to practically incorporate them into your life and relationships.

The first step in knowing how to be more feminine is to focus on your inner radiance. Your feminine radiance is your energy - ie: what are you like to be around as a person? 

What kind of feelings does your presence inspire in people?

Have you ever met somebody who may not have been the most stereotypically attractive, or the most interesting person, but they have a special warmth and energy about them. 

You may associate the phrase “lights up a room,” with people like this, this is inner radiance. Radiance is attractive to everybody, but a high value man especially appreciates a radiant woman.

My personal trick for instant inner radiance is to go outside under the sun, you can do this as you walk or even in your car. 

Imagine that you can breathe in the sunlight and have it fill up your chest and your heart. Feel the warmth of it, envision the bright, blinding light building in your chest, and relax into it. 

Now whenever you need to radiate warmth and light you have so much of it inside of you, you can take a deep breath and release it back into any situation.

What does it mean to be loving in a feminine way? If you consider that love from the life force is unconditional, then it's no wonder that love (or being loving) is in itself a feminine trait.

Being loving comes naturally when we have children or are in a relationship -  even with our friends, but these are not the only places we can practice being loving. 

Ourselves, animals, nature and people are all thirsty for love and every feminine woman has enough inside her to go around. 

Another good way to practice being loving is to have gratitude, when we are grateful for the people and things around us, we exude love naturally.

Loving and nurturing, although they often coincide, are not the same thing. 

In fact, I would caution one away from nurturing a man. That is not to say you cannot demonstrate or use your nurturing nature to your advantage with a man, but beware of mothering him, I will cover more on this under nurturing below.

Femininity is vulnerable by default. Think about the womb, the scarcity of our eggs in comparison to the abundance of sperm that men have, the size of the average woman compared to the size of the average man, think particularly about pregnancy and childbirth and how vulnerable we are as women. 

Vulnerability, despite being such a huge part of the naturally feminine state, is probably one of the hardest things to practice objectively, particularly in a romantic relationship, and especially in a society that equates vulnerability with weakness.

MORE: How To Be Vulnerable With A Man Without Being NEEDY: 2 Examples.

Most women learned from a young age that it is not safe to be vulnerable, so they covered it up and suppressed it. 

For some women, they may have gone too far the other way and become perpetual victims of life. Regardless, both of these types are uncomfortable with (or afraid of) true vulnerability.

True vulnerability is a strength and is crucial to becoming more feminine. It is what will captivate a man into wanting to love and care for a woman, he has no other biological or social imperative, if you are not vulnerable in some way then he will feel like…“so what does she really need me for?”

Beauty is the domain of the feminine and as the old idiom would say, it is in the eye of the beholder. If your beholder is a high value masculine man then he is going to appreciate your beauty, both externally and within.

Radiance, vulnerability and lovingness are some feminine traits that will make you more beautiful along with nurturing and nourishing yourself. 

• Eat well
• Take care of your body and your skin
• Get plenty of sleep 

Experiment with flattering colours of nail polish or lipstick, different fabrics, patterns in clothing (as long as it's something you like and it makes you feel beautiful). 

Embrace your femininity at its core and you will radiate beauty on the outside.

There is a childlike playfulness and essence to femininity. It is one thing to be able to give and nurture life, we must also be able to engage, challenge and stimulate it. 

Look at how a mother will typically respond to and play with her children, she might speak in a gentle but clear voice, wink, giggle and be unafraid to get messy in play. This type of display of playfulness is raw femininity.

It is not only with children that being playful in our femininity serves us. Men also thrive on and appreciate playfulness. Check out The Dark Feminine Art of High Value Banter - Shen Wade Media to learn a simple but effective way to introduce more playfulness to your interactions with men.

We can't answer the question of 'how to be more feminine?' without looking at the subject of softness. 

Femininity is soft - it needs to be in order to cradle a newborn or to act as a gentle landing space for a strong masculine heart. 

There is power in this softness - when things are hard it makes everything less hard. 
When life gets tough, femininity takes the strongest blows, then dilutes and redistributes these blows with its softness.

So here’s an idea: you can practice softness on a day to day basis by making a conscious effort to be gentle with your surroundings. 

Think about the way you interact with the world, for example the way you hold things or the way you close a door, do you grab and slam a door, or are you more intentional and careful? 

• Think about the way you speak. Aim to approach things softly. 
• Lower your voice
• Listen more than you talk 
• Relax your face and your shoulders
• Offer gentle touch to others where appropriate; and 
• Let your eyes smile...

The easy flow of femininity is a sharp contrast to the strong direction of masculinity. 

Imagine femininity is like the water of the river or the ocean, masculinity is like the boat or vessel. 

The water will flow unpredictably around the vessel, yet it will steer its way through and follow the map until it’s destination is on the horizon. 

This kind of flow and direction is crucial to relationships too - spending too much time in masculine energy can have you feeling stressed, and you can fail to ‘come out’ of that stress at times if you’re continually forgetting how to be feminine and go with the flow.

A good way to practice this is to have faith in your own natural feminine flow, and trust in masculine purpose and direction. If you are dating or in a relationship you could try:

• Trusting him for 1 month
• Choosing connection over being right
• Participating in things without having to know or control all the details.
• Take his word for it (Men are simple communicators, 99% of the time they say what they mean)

An important feminine trait, yet as I mentioned earlier the way that women demonstrate this with men can make or break a relationship. 

Feminine women love to nurture, we are biologically inclined to do so for obvious reasons. 

Even if you are not a woman who has or wants children, you likely nurture some people in your family, or maybe even animals or plants. 

You may nurture your career or yourself, whatever it is that you value, you probably nurture a lot if you think about it!

The feminine ability to nurture adds to your intrinsic value as a feminine woman. 

Resist the urge of falling into the pattern of nurturing a man though. Instead, nurture your relationship with him, your relationship with yourself, nurture his masculinity, but try not to nurture him specifically. 

Men don’t actually want women to take care of them. A low value man will tolerate and even demand it but will still grow to resent her. 

She would resent him too though! (Hello man child!) - no woman has time for that.

Poise is a bit of an underrated and old-fashioned concept, however its importance to femininity should not be underestimated. 

Feminine poise is part energy and part etiquette, aside from grace and elegance, poise is all about the balance of energies that femininity thrives on.

Here’s how to be more poised:

• Practice good posture
• Calmness and listening to understand rather than to respond
• Feel and think before you speak
• Take pause and be conscious of the messages your body and behaviors send to the people around you.

How to be Graceful | 7 Steps to Instant Feminine Poise (thefemininewoman.com)

Just like its energy and flow, femininity is wild and free. Think about nature and about how femininity is the essence of the life force, like mother nature. 

We know she is kind and beautiful but she’s also unpredictable and capable of great wrath when necessary (like storms and plagues). Her volatility is the ultimate freedom.

To become freer in your femininity it's as simple as getting in touch with nature. 

For a deeply feminine woman the sensations of nature will radiate deep within her soul. 

For me I love being on the water, the smell of rain and the sound of birds chirping (ironic given that I have a phobia of birds), but these aspects of nature give me a powerful sense of soothing and freedom. 

Find what in nature makes your heart sing and be open to it!

Earlier in the article we discussed a common misconception about femininity regarding “receiving”. 

This idea is often backed by arguments about how the penis enters the vagina and the sperm swims to the egg, as if feminine and masculine energies were so obtuse. 

This is used to justify silly rules like the 80/20 rule and leaning back and making him chase you. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that these are low value dating strategies. They may “work” or show some results but they aren't sustainable or authentic.

A more genuine way to achieve similar but more lasting results in your relationship is to relax into your natural feminine openness. 

Feminine openness does receive, but only when it is in her best interest and higher purpose to do so. Like receiving nature or the purpose and direction of a high value man.

I often say that a woman's emotional resources are her greatest asset, I am so thankful to The Feminine Woman for introducing me to this concept, it has truly changed my life and relationships for the better. 

Recommended: The Most Valuable Thing a Woman can Give to a Man

Femininity is emotionally resourceful by nature, this is why women are so good at comforting children and cheering up their friends, we are good at holding emotional space for others. 

This emotional resourcefulness isn't something that men have an infinite supply of and access to, like we do. 

A romantic partner is often a man's only safe emotional place, given what we know about masculinity and how it is conditioned to be strong and unmoving, your emotional resourcefulness is such a valuable gift to him.

Read more about emotional resources in my last article 3 Powerful Ways to Self Soothe Anxious Attachment.

Femininity is not all flowing, loving, nurturing, playful and soft. Sometimes she is dark. Dark femininity is probably the least discussed and most suppressed part of femininity, and much to our disadvantage as women. 

Discovering and interacting with the dark parts of our feminine souls can open us up to new levels of healing and connection - connection with ourselves and to men.

How boring would it be if femininity were always light and lovely? 

This one is a fine balance, because if you have too much darkness you might feel inclined to set his clothes on fire when he upsets you. 

Not enough darkness and you’ll find that the relationship lacks polarity. 

Practice using your primary emotion to harness your dark feminine. What is it? It is the first thing you feel at any given moment. 

This isn't easy, as we are so used to overthinking our emotions that by the time we express them, we are not even expressing what we actually originally felt. 

Learning to get in touch with and identify your primary emotions will allow healthy expressions of dark femininity.

The dark feminine loves sexual expression too, in the context of a committed relationship. 

So don’t be afraid to express your sexuality and give in to your darker feminine desires in the bedroom.

CLICK here to discover the 7 common signs that a woman is perceived as low value in the eyes of men in this special report. 

(Why is this important? Because men and women perceive value very differently and you don’t want to be making mistakes that would cause quality men to dismiss, abandon or alienate you.) 

In addition to harnessing the 13 feminine traits above you can practice additional expressions and displays of femininity, like:

• Developing a comforting presence
• Practicing faith or spirituality
• Be open to receiving and encouraging masculine energies
• Prioritise emotional attraction and connection in your relationship
• Believe in him

• Keep hair, skin and nails healthy
  
• Experiment with simple makeup that extenuates your natural beauty
• Embrace a more feminine style of dress
• Get in touch with nature
• Nourish and nurture yourself and the people around you.

I hope you enjoyed this article on How To Be More Feminine. Let me know in the comments below about your own thoughts on how to be more feminine. 

Do you have any ideas on what femininity traits are? 

Jerri xx

Jerri W is a hospitality manager, hostess, writer and busy mum of 3 from Melbourne,  Australia. With a keen interest in femininity, personal development and the psychology of love and relationships, Jerri is passionate about helping women to get to know themselves and enjoy better relationships.

Jerri W

Author For National Council for Research on Women

Renée Shen

Author & Editor For National Council for Research on Women

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